The scariest yokai is the Shichinin Misaki, seven ghosts who kill whoever meets them. Your death frees one of them, and you take its place. It never ends.
We did not rank these by how they look. We read all 175 yokai on this site and asked four questions. Does the record say people die? Is there no way to survive? Can anyone meet it? Is it still out there? A yokai that says yes to all four is at the top.
| Rank | Yokai | What happens to you | Can you survive? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shichinin Misaki | A high fever, then death. You join the seven | No |
| 2 | Aka Manto | A question with no right answer | No |
| 3 | Tsurube-otoshi | It drops from a tree and eats you | No |
| 4 | Hasshaku-sama | Death within a few days | One way, and it rarely works |
| 5 | Kuchisake-onna | "Am I pretty?" Both answers can kill | Only with tricks spread among children |
| 6 | Noma | It catches people and eats them | Only if a goddess is there |
| 7 | Funayurei | Your boat is filled with water and sinks | Yes: a ladle with no bottom |
| 8 | Kappa | It drags you into the river | Yes: bow to it |
| 9 | Gagoze | Boys who went up the bell tower died | Only a boy of great strength |
| 10 | Rokurokubi | Flying heads hunt at night | Yes: hide the body |
How we break ties: a yokai that caused something real, like a panic, police or a custom, goes first. After that, the older record goes first.
No way out: a curse and a question
1. Shichinin Misaki
The Shichinin Misaki are always seven. Meet them, and you come down with a high fever and die. Then one of the seven is freed, and you take the empty place. So the number never changes. In Tosa, today's Kōchi, the seven are said to be the spirits of the samurai Kira Chikazane and his retainers. He was ordered to kill himself around 1590, and they died with him. People in the area still call a road accident "Chikazane's curse." Far away, in Tokuyama, Yamaguchi, people hid their thumbs inside their fists.
2. Aka Manto
You are alone in a school toilet. A voice asks, "Do you want a red cloak or a blue cloak?" Choose red, and you die covered in blood. Choose blue, and your blood is drained until you turn blue. An early form was told in Osaka schools in the mid-1930s. A related rumour of a man in a red cloak who took children spread across Japan, and by 1940 it had reached Korea. In Osaka, police seized a picture-story show about him.
No way out: on the road at night
3. Tsurube-otoshi
The tsurube-otoshi waits in a tall pine by a lonely road. In a Kyoto village, a head came down from an old pine and ate people. Then it stayed away for a few days, as if it was full. In Wakayama, a traveller was pulled up into the tree in a bucket. The records give no charm against it. They only mark which trees to avoid.
One way out, and it rarely works
4. Hasshaku-sama
Hasshaku-sama is a woman about 2.4 m tall in a white dress and hat. She comes from a forum post of 2008. Those she marks die within a few days. One way is recorded: stay in a room with salt in every corner until seven in the morning, and do not answer her. The boy in the story lives. But the legend says no one else she met was saved.
5. Kuchisake-onna
A woman in a mask asks, "Am I pretty?" Say no, and she kills you. Say yes, and she shows you her mouth, cut from ear to ear. In 1979 the rumour covered Japan in a few months. Some schools sent children home in groups. In Himeji, a woman dressed as her and carrying a kitchen knife was arrested. The ways to escape her, like saying "pomade" three times, spread among children.
6. Noma
The noma of Iwami, in Shimane, was written down in 1929. It has one eye, and it catches people and eats them. In the one story on record, it came for a worker asleep at an iron furnace. A woman lay over him. The noma saw her and ran. She was Kanayago-san, the goddess of the furnace. So the only escape on record is a goddess, not anything you can do yourself.
You can get away
7. Funayurei
Funayurei are the ghosts of the drowned. They rise around a boat and ask, "Lend us a ladle." Give them one, and they fill your boat with sea water until it sinks. Sailors knew the answer: hand over a ladle with the bottom knocked out. Going to sea on the 16th day of Obon or on New Year's Eve was said to bring them, so boats stayed home.
8. Kappa
The kappa drags horses, cattle and children into the river. For centuries it was used to explain real drownings. Its strength is the water in the dish on its head. Bow to it, and it bows back, and the water spills.
9. Gagoze
The Nihon Ryōiki of the early 800s tells of a demon at Gangō-ji temple in Nara. The boys sent to tend the bell tower lamp at night kept dying. Then a boy of great strength seized the gagoze by the hair. He dragged it around until dawn, and it fled, leaving its hair in his hands. This is the oldest record here, but the demon was beaten.
10. Rokurokubi
Today the rokurokubi is a woman whose neck stretches. In older Edo stories, the head flies off the body at night. In Lafcadio Hearn's 1904 tale, the flying heads attack a monk, and he fights them off. The old warning gives you the upper hand: hide the sleeping body, and the head cannot return.
Famous, but less deadly than you think
Many lists put these three near the top. The records say otherwise.
- Gashadokuro, the giant skeleton. It eats people only in modern yokai books. The name itself first appeared in 1966.
- Jorōgumo, the spider woman. Her thread pulls men into the water, but the old tales give the trick: tie it to a tree stump instead.
- Yuki-onna, the snow woman. She can freeze you with her breath. But in her most famous story, she lets the young man live.
Fear lives where people must go
The top three wait in ordinary places: a road, a school toilet, a pine by the path. You cannot avoid them, because you have to go there. And almost none of them has a rule that saves you.
The ones lower down all come with a rule: a ladle, a bow, a hidden body. People who lived with them made those rules. The scariest yokai are the ones nobody found a rule for.
Two more killers are not written up yet: the isonade, a sea monster whose tail sweeps men off the deck, and the yamahime, whose song drains your blood. For gentler giants, see the biggest yokai, or dress as one for Halloween.
